• Journal of Korea Water Resources Association
• /
• v.37 no.6
• /
• pp.479-485
• /
• 2004

This study presents the calculation of evapotranspiration using estimated daily incoming solar radiation based on maximum daily temperature and minimum daily temperature. The Thornton and Running method(1999) was used to estimate daily incoming solar radiation and then the resulting solar radiation was compared with the measurements. It showed that the estimated daily solar radiation was within reasonable accuracy. In turn, the estimated daily solar radiation was applied to calculate the daily evapotranspiration using the Priestly-Taylor equation and Penman equation and the general results were that evapotranspiration was overestimated in the Priestly-Taylor equation but that Penman was a good estimator with this approach. It is encouraging that it is possible to use this approach, because the required historical data for its estimation are not extensively available and it is not easy to access the meteorological stations in most areas. The calculated eyapotranspiration was compared with that of Hargreaves which was based on daily temperature, and gives us some intuition in terms of engineering.